The Honourable Ministers of Education, Culture, Agriculture, Foreign Affairs and Tourism of the Chinese Government

The Honourable Ambassador of China for the European Affairs and Communities

The Honourable Ambassadors of China in the United Kingdom and Spain

The Honourable Beijing City Officials

Dear Mr. President,

According to recent newspaper articles (including EL MUNDO, 26 November 2009), Spanish bullfighting promoters, lead by bullfighter Manolo Sánchez, have signed an agreement with the Chinese Government and Beijing city officials to create a “ganadería” (a farm to breed bulls for bullfights in China) and a bullring in Huairo-Beijing.

The shipment of bulls to China is scheduled for January and the bullring is said to be built by October 2010 and inaugurated with the performance of two bullfights. From 2011, Manolo Sánchez intends to organise 16 bullfights a year in Beijing – four each month (in June, July, August and September of each year).

With this message, I join ANIMAL, from Portugal, CAS International, from The Netherlands, and the League Against Cruel Sports, from the United Kingdom, in calling on you to take all the necessary steps to prevent these or any other bullfighting promoters from staining China with this gruesome activity. There are many important, respectable and beautiful manifestations of the Spanish and European culture that China can host with success and be praised for – but the evil and nowadays ruinous business of bullfighting is not one of them. Your successful hosting of the Olympic Games demonstrates how well China can host decent, respectable events without the need for animal suffering.

Contrary to what the bullfighting industry may want you to believe, bullfighting is no longer an important part of the Spanish culture. It reflects only a very small, archaic and cruel part of it, and Spanish people no longer see it as a reflection of values and culture of the present day. Spain has changed tremendously, as all countries have and today the cruelty towards animals, particularly bullfighting, is heavily criticized within Spanish society. Indeed, more than sixty municipalities in Spain have banned bullfighting and declared themselves anti-bullfighting cities, as have others in Portugal and France – the remaining two states of the European Union where bullfighting takes place. The Spanish region of Catalonia is expected to ban bullfighting completely in early 2010.

Furthermore, bullfighting will not attract tourists to China. On the contrary, recent opinion polls have shown that Europeans are strongly opposed to bullfighting and stay distant from the blood sport. For example, 89 percent of British citizens would never visit a bullfight when on holiday (ComRes poll commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports, 2008).

Animal cruelty is a factor that influences the choices of tourists: people do not want to visit cities or countries where animals are not respected, so China would only lose tourists if bullfighting would be brought to your country – not the opposite.

Finally, the fall of the bullfighting industry is so strong and unavoidable, that this industry is seeking to export bullfighting to countries where such a cruel activity has never existed, in order to save this barbaric business from the extinction that it is facing in Europe and in Latin America.

Thanking you in advance for your attention, we look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.